


Keep Your Eyes On Me

by polytropic



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Get-Together Fic, Multi, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-06
Updated: 2016-01-06
Packaged: 2018-05-12 04:47:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5652952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/polytropic/pseuds/polytropic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finn and Rey totally had a Moment (probably), Poe's life is the hardest, Ben knows all of Mean Girls by heart, and none of them are going to survive Homecoming. </p><p>(High School AU sorry not sorry)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keep Your Eyes On Me

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [High School Letter Jacket AU](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/167347) by gil-estel.tumblr.com. 



> This was inspired by an amazing piece of fanart I saw on Tumblr, linked above. Credit for the idea and for the terribly embarrassing noise I made when I saw it should all go to the original artist. 
> 
> Important note: in my imagination, Poe puts his hair up into a little fluffy ponytail when he plays soccer. This image is vital to my survival, friends. 
> 
> Other notes, less important than Poe's hair:  
> \- Rey's fighting is based off of Muay Thai kickboxing because that's what it looked like Daisy Ridley was doing in a gifset I saw  
> \- Rey and Ben are fake cousins because their grandpas Anakin and Ben Sr. are either old friends or married depending on who you ask and so they grew up together  
> \- don't worry about how Poe, Jessika and Bibi are all on the same soccer team because I don't see any point in writing fic where things like sports teams are segregated by assigned gender unless there's a story-relevant reason to  
> \- I didn't work Coach Phasma into this story even though I wanted to SO BADLY because it broke up the flow :(  
> \- in a tradition I'm now resigned to, I've named it after a pop song, "Shut Up and Dance" by Walk the Moon. And I almost named it "My Discotheque Boba Fett Teenage Dream" so, like, you're WELCOME

"They're so unfairly hot."

Finn meant it more to be a resigned whine than an actual statement anyone should pay attention to, but it fell into one of those weird silent lulls in the conversation and now everyone was looking at him. Poe raised an eyebrow (which, unfair, Finn had seen him literally teaching himself to do that through all of Spanish class last year and it wasn't okay that now it looked dashing and debonair when he'd spent months holding his eyebrow up with a pencil to "train the muscles"), Jessika snorted in kind of a pitying way, and Bibi pulled one massive white-and-orange headphone off their ear and said, "sorry, what?"

"Them." Finn waved a hand across the study hall room at the cluster in the corner. This being an unsupervised study period, the juniors of Jakku High were variously draped over, sleeping under, and teetering precariously half-on their desks, and engaged in a variety of excitingly not-homework-related pursuits. Finn and Poe had gone for the classic push-two-chairs-together-into-a-loveseat-and-sit-mostly-on-top-of-each-other maneuver, which had been a good idea in Finn's opinion because Poe was warm and also had very soft, comfy hair. Jessika was sitting in her seat normally like weirdo. Bibi was lying across two desks with their iPod headphones in and a soccer ball balanced on their stomach.

And, in the opposite corner, Rey Kenobi and Ben Organa were slumped in chairs, Ben draped like a maiden on a fainting couch and Rey crouched with her knees pressed up against the desk and the chair wobbling on two legs but never actually in danger of falling. There wasn't anything as dramatic as a space cleared around the two of them, people weren't actually hanging back in reverence and awe, but it kind of felt like they should be. There was a glow, an aura, nay, an _eminence_ about that particular corner of the classroom. It housed an angelic being after all, Finn reflected. Angelic in very much the flaming-sword sense, but still. 

"Specifically, her." Poe did a funny mouth-twitch that Finn couldn't really interpret.

"Specifically her," Finn agreed, and sighed dreamily.

"If you're going to tell us again how you guys totally had a ~moment~ in Driver's Ed like three months ago, I'm putting my music back on."

"You're so mean Bibi."

"Seriously, I'll do it."

"Fine." Finn pouted and flipped open his math textbook pointedly. "Maybe I'll just _study_ instead."

"In study hall? Scandalous. Hey Poe, I have new plays for our game next week, wanna see?"

"Hm, totally." Poe leaned forward, and his hair flopped over one ear and screened his face. Absentmindedly, Finn flipped it back and then finger-combed it away from his face; when Poe made a little humming sound that seemed to indicate happiness, he kept doing it, turning pages of the math book with one hand and running his other hand through thick, smooth dark locks.

"Poe you're not even fucking listening to me."

~~~

"I feel like we had a moment, you know? Or. Kind of a moment. He didn't scream in terror. That's a moment, right?" Rey was mostly concentrating on this sketch, really she was, but there was a little piece of her brain that insisted on occupying itself, every study hall period, with Finn. She didn't even know the guy's last name, this _sucked_.

"He's a jock, Rey." Ben wasn't so much reading a script as smooshing his face into it. Maybe he thought this was an edgy new technique. Really becoming "one" with the source material. She wasn't going to ask, something pretentious would come out in response.

"Seriously, Ben? You have watched too many 90s movies about high school, I'm actually concerned."

"I _haven't_."

"Uh, you _have_ , we have the same Netflix login. _Mean Girls_ is never less than three down from the most recently watched." Rey took a moment to give Ben her unimpressed face, then turned back to her sketchbook. Carefully, she shaded in the detailing on her engine.

"Shut _up_." Ben's ears went super pink, which meant she'd won. "He's a jock, he's never going to understand your creative soul. He's just like everyone else at this school, in this quintessence of dust, this foul and pestilent congregation of vapours..."

Oh god he was reading _Hamlet_ again.

"Ben if you don't stop quoting I'll tell Mr. Snoke to cast Hux next time."

"Oh, like he'll listen to you!" Ben's voice squeaked. Rey grinned. 

"Maybe, maybe not. You going to risk it? That perfect high school career of leading roles? The one no one has achieved since your gran--"

" _Fine_." Ben kicked one of the legs of the chair Rey was balancing on, and she shrieked a little before she managed to re-establish her bearings. "You're the worst fake cousin ever. I'm done giving good advice. Have fun with your jock boyfriend. Your _gay_ jock boyfriend."

"Benjamen Kyle Organa, if you just used 'gay' as a derogatory term--!"

"Uh, no, I used gay as in 'he's cuddling with a dude who's sitting on his lap.'"

Rey looked over, trying to do it subtly but pretty sure she wasn't successful. Dammit. For once, Ben was actually right.

~~~

_**BB8** : You're stalking that girl Finn likes again, aren't you_

Poe glared down at his laptop, offended.

_**HotDamneron** : Stalking is creepy and illegal. I'm watching the rehearsals for the play which she happens to be part of._

_**BB8** : She any good?_

Poe spent a second trying to figure out anything to say other than "yes, incredible, and I'm pissed off about it."

 _ **HotDamneron** :_ _She's not acting. She does the set design and construction._

_**BB8** : Oooh, girls with tools_

_**HotDamneron** : I think she built a fog machine. I think she may have *designed* and built a fog machine.  
_

_**BB8:** Dude. You are outclassed._

_**HotDamneron is away** _

_**BB8:** Aw Poe I'm sorry _

_That was mean you're right_

_Poe_

_Pooooooooeeeeeee_

_I really am sorry_

_I'll watch Star Trek with you_

_**HotDamneron is active** _

_**HotDamneron:** No take-backs **  
**_

_**BB8** : I'm a nerd of my word. After practice?_

_**HotDamneron** : Fine_

Poe zipped his laptop case closed and snuck back out of the last row of the auditorium, trying not to let the doors bang too loudly shut behind him. It wasn't like he was breaking any rules watching the play rehearsals, but he felt obscurely guilty about it nevertheless.

Not nearly as guilty as he felt when he jogged into soccer practice two minutes late and saw Finn, sitting on the bleachers with a book out as usual, Poe's red varsity letter jacket draped over his shoulders.

Apparently transfers from fancy uniform-dress-code private schools didn't know what "Hey, you look cold, want to borrow my jacket? Wow, it suits you, you should keep it" meant. Finn had beamed that angelic smile at him, hugged him, and proceeded to wear the jacket everywhere while talking loudly and constantly about his crush on Rey Kenobi.

And Poe couldn't even blame him for it, because his information-gathering--not stalking!--about Rey Kenobi had so far turned up literally nothing that was not some variation on "she's amazing."

"Poe. Buddy. I recognize you're pining, but this is the part of the sport where you kick the ball." Bibi tapped him on the shoulder in a way that managed to be both sympathetic and mocking simultaneously. Poe made a terrible growly noise of ultimate suffering in his chest, turned, and booted the ball straight into the upper-left corner of the goal. If he had nothing else left to him in this world, at least he was still the best striker on the team.

"Whoo! Go Poe!" sounded faintly from the bleachers. His life was so unfair.

~~~

The game the next week was against First Order Preparatory. Poe didn't realize it was Finn's old school until Finn showed up to the game with his ENTIRE face painted the Rebels colors. "I'm showing my loyalties," he said determinedly, and proceeded to sit in the front row of the bleachers and cheer for the entire game.

They needed the encouragement. First Order were their main contenders for the state championship later that year, and they were already gearing up for it. Their formations were drilled to perfection and their training regimen was apparently brutal, but in Poe's considered opinion that didn't make up for having actual teamwork. Bibi cackled as they flipped the ball through a midfielder's legs and beat him down the field; their cross to Jessika was beautiful, perfectly on-target, and Jessika knocked it into the goal with a quick flick of her head before the defenders had time to adjust. Poe scored eight minutes later off a beautiful assist from Jessika, and that clinched it, 2-0.

He emerged from the locker room after the game, euphoric and kind of gross, to see Finn across the empty parking lot squaring up against three First Order players.

"--don't particularly care what you think," he heard Finn say.

"Sure. But I'm not surprised you failed out. Everyone saw it coming."

"I didn't _fail out_." Poe had never heard that tone in Finn's voice before. He was usually jokey, carefree, maybe a little immature. Poe wouldn't really have predicted that his voice could snap like that, deep and harsh. Poe dropped his soccer bag by the door and started to jog over. "I _left_. Because I didn't feel like competing to see who could cite more nervous breakdowns and stress nightmares on their college transcript."

"Riiight. Because that's not code for 'it was too hard' at all."

"I had a fucking 4.0, asshat. I jumped through every hoops they wanted me to, checked off every box, was president of every club and played all the sports and competed and won all the shiny little trophies for them. Did you miss my name on the national merit list somehow? Maybe you were too busy crying because you didn't make it." One of the guys took a threatening step forward. Poe sped up.  Finn laughed. " _That's_ what gets you mad? You're so _brainwashed_."

If Poe hadn't been running full-tilt trying to get to Finn, he would have spared some breath to yell at the idiot to stop antagonizing dudes who were obviously already looking for a fight. As it was he saw one of them draw his fist back, and cursed his muscles that were already burning from the game and weren't getting him there fast enough.

There was a blur of motion, confusing and sudden, and then one of the First Order guys was on the ground, groaning. Over him was a figure in a tan hoodie, face obscured and posture kind of...scarily Ready.

"No idea what's happening here, but you should all break it up now if you don't want to get hurt," the figure said, voice high and clear. Finn was staring, mouth open, instead of running away like a reasonable person. The First Order guys weren't running either; they looked at each other, weirdly in-sync, and then one of them squared up and punched the hooded person straight in the jaw.

The hood fell back as the person's head snapped backwards. Dark hair, fine-boned face--Poe barely had time to think _Rey, that's Rey_ before her feet did some kind of shuffle re-adjustment and she was moving, ducking the next swing as if she knew it was coming and then hitting, one-two to the body and then suddenly a knee to the side. Poe barely even saw her foot touch the ground again before it came back in a _massive_ kick, really frightening in the loud "thwack" sound it made. The guy who had punched her fell down and stopped moving. 

Poe was there by that time, and he didn't have time to think about it, just saw the first guy Rey had punched getting back to his feet with clearly malicious intent and tackled him. It wasn't elegant or practiced in any way, but the dude went down with Poe on top of him with a confused yell. Poe sat on his chest and hoped he didn't think to kick him and wondered if this really counted as getting into his first ever fistfight.

"Ow ow ow, Jesus!" Poe looked up to see Finn hopping in a circle shaking his hand, the last First Order guy stumbling away from him holding his face. " _That's_ why they say not to punch people in the face! Damn! Ow!"

"Leave. Like right now," Rey said, still with that scary Ready To Throw Down stance, and this time the First Order players listened. Poe rolled off his guy so he could scramble away, and he watched them pile into a sleek sports car and peel out of the parking lot.

“Are you okay?” Finn was still cradling his hand, and Poe went over to him and tried to help him straighten out the fingers.

“Yeah, I’m—ow—I don’t think it’s broken.” Finn put up with Poe fussing over his hand with commendable patience. 

"Jerks!" Rey bellowed after the retreating car. When she turned back to Finn and Poe she was grinning cheerfully, broad and bright. "Three versus one, what's fair about that? Serves them right. Oh, huh." She winced and touched a hand to her lip like she hadn't noticed until then that it was bleeding a little from when she'd gotten hit. Poe realized slowly that Rey had just beat up three dudes, with minimal help from him and Finn, simply because she had seen a fight starting that she hadn't thought was fair odds.

It was probably the coolest, bravest thing Poe had ever seen in real life. And she'd done it to protect Finn.

Poe knew what he had to do.

"Will you go to Homecoming with me?"

"Dude!" Finn's anguished cry of betrayal was what clued Poe in that something had gone wrong with his word delivery system.

"Crap, no, I meant with _Finn_! Like, I seriously did, will you go to Homecoming with Finn? He really likes you."

"What?" Rey blinked at both of them. She was still flushed from exertion, and her hair was hanging down over her forehead messily. Her hoodie was old and faded, and the sleeves were long enough that the cuffs flopped down over her hands. Her lip was starting to swell. She looked incredible. Poe might have been having a small breathing problem. "Did you just ask if I'd go to Homecoming with both of you?"

"No, I meant--!"

"'cuz I will. I'd like to. I mean. If you want."

Woah. What?

"Seriously?" Finn was gaping at Rey. Poe couldn't fault him, he was kind of doing the same thing.

"Sure. I like you, Finn, and, uh, you? Soccer dude? I don't know you super well but you seem nice. And if you have, like, an open relationship or whatever, and you're cool with it--"

"Woah woah woah back up. Relationship? Us?" Finn's incredulity wasn't unreasonable, but it still stung.

"You're not dating?"

"No Finn's straight." "No Poe's straight." They said it at the same time, and the words got so muddled together that it took a minute for Poe to realize what Finn had said.

"What?"

"What?"

Poe stared at Finn. Finn stared at Poe. Rey looked between them and did a really bad job of pretending not to laugh.

"Right. So, should I let you sort that out and then get back to you about the Homecoming thing, or...?"

"No, no, things are sorted!" _Finally_ Finn was going to clear things up. Poe nodded at him to let him know to go ahead. It was a tiny bit agonizing, picturing how things were going to go from here for Finn and Rey and how Poe was going to do his damnedest to be the supportive friend, but he'd get over it. Some day. Probably. So the internet told him, at least.

"Rey. Poe. Would both of you do me the very great honor of going to Homecoming with me?"

Finn grinned in a broad, kind of terrified way when Poe stared at him.

"Or, well. Rey already said yes. So. Poe, will you do us the honor of going with us? You don't have to. It's only if you want to. Obviously. Or, was that obvious? God Poe please say something or I'm just going to _keep talking_ \--"

"YES!" Way. Too. Loud. The sound actually echoed off the side of the gym, Poe heard it come back to him and was still only 80% mortified because the rest was all disbelieving joy. He'd also apparently used up all of his talking ability on that one word, too, because now all he seemed capable of doing was grinning alternately at Rey and Finn, so hard his cheeks were hurting. 

"Awesome." The amount of relief in Finn's voice made Poe wonder how long, exactly, he'd been missing something apparently pretty vital.

"Totally." Rey's cheeks did this scrunchy thing that made her eyes sparkle and Poe surreptitiously got a hand on Finn's back because he looked a little wobbly. (It had happened before; one time Rey had laughed at something in study hall and Finn had fallen off his chair) "So, like, Facebook me and we'll work out details?"

"Yeah. Yeah, totally." Finn nodded up and down, possibly too many times. Possibly Poe was a lost cause because he thought it was cute.

"And I have a car, if you--aw, crap."

"What?" Poe's heart sank. Of course it was too good to be true.

Rey sighed.

"No, it's just...we're gonna have to give my asshole cousin a ride to the dance."


End file.
